Monthly Archives: December 2013

Just finished the rough draft of Winter Shadows, at about 16,500 words. There’s a few white room sequences, so my guess is that the rewrite will come in at about 20k. A nice short little novella, should be ready to go out about the New Year’s, depending.

But for now, a few tweaks on it tomorrow, and then it rests for a few days (after I compile it in Scrivener, that is). Then I figure out pictures and all that other jazz.

So all along in the Netwalk Sequence continuity, I’ve held that Will and Diana got together in the face of parental opposition to their relationship–his father and her mother both being passionately opposed to the marriage. As recently as The Daughters Cycle this past summer, I had Diana leaving Stephens Reclamation to found Do It Right when Sarah discovers that Diana is still dating Will (this is a world where corporatism extends into family life and relationship, including the founding of corporate dynasties). I have some lovely emo stuff lying around the hard drive to that effect.

And then I started writing Dahlia, Winter Shadows, and Problems at the Andrews Ranch. All of these stories deal with the early relationship of Diana and Will as well as the foundational period of Do It Right. While there is some estrangement that happens between Diana and Sarah as a result of Diana’s choice of Will, as I’ve been writing Winter Shadows, I have come to realize that it’s not opposition because of who Will’s family is and all that leads to the eventual estrangement; it’s due to other reasons. Diana and Will disagree with Sarah and to some extent she ends up getting co-opted by Gizmo–along with Francis. It’s just that Sarah breaks free while Francis embraces it.

Arrgh. Originally these stories were just filler that I was going to write before plunging into Netwalk’s Children. But now I’m realizing I’m writing crucial backstory that needs to exist before I can start Children. I’m starting to understand just how revolutionary Melanie’s rebellion against Diana was at the end of Netwalker Uprising–and why Sarah condones it–and why Bess ends up being such a huge game changer. Yikes.

Meanwhile, back to work. I’m not getting in a lot of words over winter break because–well, decompressing from the insanity of teaching and other stuff going on, but I am working on slow but steady process. I just need to get today’s scene finished. Which…have a taste, raw writing fresh off of the word processor, warts and all:

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“You’re springing my son from the PAZ prison he belongs in. I want him.”

“No,” Diana said, before her mother could speak. “You had your chance to help him. We’re not going through all this work just to give him to you.”

So one interesting piece I’m noticing about putting up these snippets from the WIP is that with both of them so far, I’ve noticed glaring errors I’ve had to correct. With the first one, I had to specify that Diana’s headset had limited vocal com access settings–of course if you’re wearing a headset, you’ve got com ability!

Yesterday’s blooper had Diana holding a blaster just as the skimmer she was in took off for high-G evasive maneuvers. Um. Yeah. Oooops.

All just a part of the revision process. Here’s what the revised version of yesterday’s scene looks like:

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Movement. Her mother put the tablet down steadily, precisely, locking it into secured position. The slow, careful motion alerted Diana.

“What’s up?”

Her mother picked up a blaster. “Arm up, Diana. Incoming–and they aren’t friendly.”

The automatic security belts clamped down solidly across her body. Diana reached for her blaster, heart pounding in her ears as she activated the disabling rounds, then secured it on the scabbard locked into the arm of her seat. With incoming, evasive maneuvers would likely follow. She didn’t want to hold onto that blaster when it happened. “Any idea who they are?”

Sarah shook her head. “They refuse to ID themselves. We’re going to try to outrun them, but they fit the profile of Landreth skimmers. Not the PAZ.”

Maybe they’re coming to help– Diana dismissed that notion quickly. Not if they wouldn’t ID themselves.

Francis spit out a series of code phrases she couldn’t identify over her com. The com suddenly went silent, dead silent. Then their skimmer shot straight up, pulling some Gs and pushing Diana down hard in her seat. It banked hard and tight, and then accelerated, faster than typical for most skimmers. Of course. Mom would have the highest performance skimmer she could get her fingers on, then mod it up.

An impact knocked them sideways. The skimmer rolled. Red lights flashed in the passenger cabin as a warning buzzer screamed. Clamps snaked across Diana’s forehead, thighs and arms as the skimmer rolled again. Diana made herself breathe. In. Out. In. Out. She forced herself to relax against her restraints, remaining loose in case of further impact. Tense muscles would make things worse.

The skimmer stabilized, plunging down hard. The buzzer stopped blaring and the lights held steady.

What the–? Did Landreth just shoot at us?

The skimmer leveled and rocketed off faster than before. Her restraints eased slightly but did not release.

Her mother picked up a blaster. “Arm up, Diana. Incoming–and they aren’t friendly.”

Diana reached for her weapon, heart pounding in her ears as she activated the disabling rounds in her own blaster. “Any idea who they are?”

Sarah shook her head. “They refuse to ID themselves. We’re going to try to outrun them, but they fit the profile of Landreth skimmers. Not the PAZ.”

Maybe they’re coming to help– Diana dismissed that notion quickly. Not if they wouldn’t ID themselves.

Francis spit out a series of code phrases she couldn’t identify over her com. The com suddenly went silent, dead silent. Then their skimmer shot straight up, pulling some Gs and pushing Diana down hard in her seat. It banked hard and tight, and then accelerated, faster than typical for most skimmers.

Diana’s hands tightened on the blaster in her lap. She sat silently, waiting.

Something knocked them sideways. The skimmer rolled tightly three times, then stabilized, plunging down hard.

Close, but not close enough. Diana slumped back in her seat in the darkness of the skimmer parked on the edge of a landing strip in God-knows-where-on-some-Mediterranean-island, careful not to disturb her headset. Three days. It had taken three nerve-wracking days to put the plan together. She’d played her part, including a dramatic, tearful interview where she’d managed to slip the phrase shadows unfold into several of her angsty comments. The buzz media had eaten it up.

Would Will be able to see that?

Depends on what they’re doing to him, Francis had answered when she’d asked. They wanted him to talk about you. Odds are he’ll see anything you say to the press. You’re a leverage point they have over him.

That’s the problem of romantic connections, her mother had answered wryly, raising a brow at Francis.

But now it was happening. Diana wore a headset with communication capabilities, monitoring outside coms along with Francis’s com team, a backup just in case until they got Will. Then she just had to keep talking to Will to keep him calm.

Mocha was itching to get out, and even though the ground was frozen solid, we went outdoors. She’d been quivering a little bit when I brought her out of her stall, so on went the fleece cooler to replace her heavy blanket (I was surprised as I didn’t think the trace clip was that chilling. In retrospect, I think she might have just been a bit eager to get moving).

I thought for sure that this was going to be the time she’d blow up on me. High-headed from the moment she stepped out of the stall, and the way she blew up and humped her back when I tightened the cinch–I almost rethought throwing the cooler over the saddle, as I’d planned, but shrugged the worries off, figuring that if she was going to blow, she’d blow if I asked her to lunge a little. And if I can’t sit a couple of Mocha bucks, even with a cooler over the saddle–well…Mocha’s not the most talented bucker I’ve ridden. Sparkle is the queen of bucking in my life, and Mocha isn’t the sort of horse to get into bucking like Sparkle did. And Sparkle never would signal a bucking spell, she’d just launch herself into it. I figured it was safe. I did dip her snaffle into lukewarm water to warm it up, which surprised her.

So we went outside into the big arena. Mocha stepped gingerly through the patches of dirt and sand heaved up by the frost, and she really didn’t want to leave my side when I tried to do a short lunging. Since she wasn’t humping up like a horse thinking to buck on a cold ride, I tightened the cinch a little, got the same hump, walked her some more, tightened a little, and called it good even though it wasn’t as tight as usual. Made sure the cooler was wrapped around the stirrups so that I could find my right one fast if she did decide to surprise me, and got up on her quickly and smoothly. The way she minced out told me right off she wasn’t going to buck. No, Miss Stall Princess just didn’t trust icy hard ground.

Interestingly, she relaxed and strode out when we went through the leaves. There were just as many frost heaves there, but perhaps the ground isn’t frozen as hard–in any case, it brought home that if I move this horse to a colder climate, she’s going to have to learn about icy ground, frost heaves, and all that other stuff. We spent most of this ride at a walk with some jogging. Almost got a piaffe during the first few jogging circuits because of how tight and short she was keeping her steps. But, kept the reins fairly long with a light contact, mostly just letting her know I was there but letting her balance and figure it out on her own. So 2/3s of a ring circuit were tight and tense, then the 1/3rd that was leaves was markedly bolder and bigger. The only other place she stepped out was over the railroad tie walkovers, and she relaxed over those.

We did do some schooling figures. Mocha expressed her opinion of the foolishness of this ride with regular little grunts of disapproval that got louder during the two tracking. But hey, after two-track, she relaxed her back enough to walk out nicely on the hard, icy ground on a soft rein. Never did get a fully relaxed trot but I settled nicely for the big swinging walk with a relaxed back.

Gotta laugh, though. I’ve never dealt with the mind-set of a stall-living horse until I owned Mocha. I’ve legged up on Sparkle and my ponies in much icier conditions, even in snow–and they didn’t think much of it. Sparkle never did hump her back up like a bucker as much in cold weather as Mocha did today, and she was the bucker of the two. Never thought you had to teach a stall-raised horse these things–and yet, with Mocha, it’s becoming quite clear that yep, that’s exactly what I have to do with her.

OTOH, one thing that is priceless is that Mocha’s sense of self-preservation with regard to her footing is HUGE. If she doesn’t trust it, she’ll stop dead and freeze up. While I might have to explicitly teach this mare to be a trail horse (that is, if the opportunity presents itself) outside of an arena, on the good side, I can count on her to be sensible.

For some reason I’ve been focusing on housework and household organization lately. Maybe it’s preparation for some impending changes (well, yes, some is just that). More likely, it’s just as much about the sudden realization that we’ve been in this house ten years and, y’know, after ten years some stuff needs to be dealt with. Additionally, for some reason I’m really stiff and sore after the past week and I just couldn’t deal with a lot of sitting time.

Plus with the cold temps (for PDX), there’s certain household maintenance tasks that have to be followed up on–a heater in the basement, letting faucets drip, towels across the bottoms of outside doors and other things.

Most of today was about doing those maintenance tasks–changing out seasonal decorations, sorting through basement stuff, putting up the Christmas tree, taking a walk in the cold and sunny weather, and going to a funeral.

I’d hoped to get some writing done but besides all that there were other chores.

That said, tomorrow I should be able to write, see Mocha, then go to an InDesign class.

So I’m doing something new this holiday season. I’m putting up a few short stories, novelettes, and novellas in the Netwalk Sequence for sale, as I get them finished and I’m able to get them loaded.

The short stories (and, hopefully, the novelettes and novellas) are going to be somewhat different from what I’ve put up before. Basically, I’m adding pictures that are somewhat related to the story, either by topic or location. It won’t be a perfect set of illustrations, because, since I’m taking them myself, I won’t be able to put people in those illustrations (well, maybe yet). So a short story that I wrote for the Plein Air Exhibition, Dahlia, is now live on Amazon for the Kindle here.

I’m billing it as primarily a romantic relationship story, because, well…that’s what it is. A complicated romance in a science fictional setting.

Other pieces I’ll be putting up soon include a sequel to Dahlia, Winter Shadows, which deals with further complications of the relationship between Will and Diana. That one will be a short story. I also plan to issue a novelette/novella about Diana and Will, Problems at the Andrews Ranch, which deals with one of the events which affects the early development of Diana and Will’s company, Do It Right. Then I’ll republish the complete and updated edition of The Daughters Cycle, including all three of the episodic, intertwined, stylistically experimental (for me) short stories I published this summer (Of Mothers and Daughters and Boyfriends; Of Daughters and Boyfriends and Mothers, Of Boyfriends and Mothers and Daughters). Andrews Ranch and Daughters may or may not have pictures included. We’ll see.